This week on Raw: Beth Phoenix continued her starring turn on Monday Night Raw, the Women’s Champion’s powerslam on Johnny Knoxville is very much a talking point on celebrity news blogs as well as wrestling media. Meanwhile, Kelly Kelly and Jillian duked it out with tag team partners.
Thoughts & Reactions
This week’s Raw was so incredibly underwhelming that I have very little to write. Thus this will likely be a very short Redux this week. Beth Phoenix continues to get a push everywhere outside of the women’s division for which she holds a championship belt. The Diva has been involved in some high profile segments featuring top WWE stars over the past month or so, including Batista and now she’s getting blogged about by the likes of Perez Hilton (I don’t visit that piece of shit, so I’m not exactly sure if there’s a blog about it there per se but you get the gist of what I’m trying to say) by slamming Johnny Knoxville. All well and good, but this was done at the expense of one of the most anticipated feuds of the year – Beth vs Candice which has stalwarted since No Mercy last weekend. It’s nice to see a Diva get recognition elsewhere on Raw and in the WWE, but I’d much rather Beth drop the title and have Beth do all this fun stuff while having actual competition on the show as well. Anyway, that powerslam lol… I guess it’s not exactly Beth’s fault as she has to sell someone who has no idea what he’s doing, but still people are going to be posting that clip on blogs, it’ll likely air on The Soup and it’s a botched powerslam.
Speaking of competition, we got a severe lack of it this week. You know how I like to write that WWE uses Divas to fill a quota? Well what does it say when they can’t even get their usual one match spot? This week we had to put up with Cryme Tyme and Miz & Morrison being injected into our only Divas match of the night. A natural progression from last week’s Raw, but I’d much rather see a straight Divas match. I expected them to have this and then have a singles match with maybe Mickie or Candice. Nope. From what I remember seeing of Kelly and Jillian, they seemed to work well together as was the case last week. Kelly’s execution of that leg-spring off the rope was much better this go around. I noticed fans actually booing when Kelly had to be tagged out because of the mixed tag rules; the fans have really taken a shine to Kelly and that’s important.
We have Candice, who is arguably WWE’s favourite Diva and Mickie James in a useless backstage segment and Kelly Kelly in a wrestling match? That tells you something. I think WWE are seeing how Kelly fever is spreading the crowd and audience and are supplying the demand, they could have easily had Candice or Mickie in a match since Kelly was in one last week. Kelly’s developing before our very eyes, her ring-work is improving and the fans are really behind her. I like that WWE hasn’t rushed her into a programme for the Women’s Championship already like they’ve done in the past with Divas who’ve caught steam, they’re letting Kelly continue to grow and I think when she finally gets her big break, she’ll have deserved it. Kelly’s transition is very unique, it’s happening before our very eyes and Kelly’s still young, she has many years ahead of her. That’s multiple title reigns, many more fans to win over – she could really be the next Trish.
Individual Assessments
In this portion we will look at each of the Divas individually and the role they played, adding more thoughts yadda yadda:
Beth Phoenix: Someone is on Vince’s favourites list at the moment…
Jillian: The song with Miz & Morrison was hilarious.
Kelly Kelly: Nothing that I haven’t mentioned above.
Fashion Focus
The Good: None
The Bad: None.
The In-Between: Everyone.
Digital Photos (Courtesy of WWE.com)
BETH & SANTINO CONFRONT JOHNNY KNOXVILLE
